Alumna of the Year 2017 nominee profile: Sophie Newton, South Hampstead High School

Having earned a double first in Mathematics at Oxford, Sophie’s career began in strategy consulting, before moving into paid media. She has overseen the massive growth of Brainlabs (Most Impressive Agency Growth 2015, 2016 at the UK Agency Awards) since its founding, and as COO is responsible for all client services departments. Under Sophie’s leadership, Brainlabs now employ over 100 people, up from just 8 in 2014. They have just opened an office in New York.

Sophie has pitched and secured £4m of new business, delivering an average of 42% increase in sales across the client portfolio. She has picked up 11 industry awards, including the IPA Woman of Tomorrow and the Everywoman Technology Inspiration award. She has been invited to speak at conferences and deliver keynotes in London, Paris, New York, Berlin and Amsterdam.

At Brainlabs, Sophie revamped performance review and introduced new recruitment guidelines to overcome inherent gender bias. Under her leadership, the gender balance has shifted from 25% to 49% women; unusually high for a company within the marketing/tech sector.

When Sophie’s pay equality plan made national news (BBC, Guardian) it was met with negative feedback. She was brave enough to fight back; increasing women's pay by an average of 8.6%.

Sophie has created open-source award-winning pieces of tech, which displays her commitment to advancing the industry, and her goal to define best practices, rather than following them.

Sophie encourages Brainlabs employees to engage with the local community; running the Brainlabs work experience scheme and giving talks about sustainability for young people.